Dutch extradite Muslim who planned attacks on US forces in Iraq - family claims martyrdom interview was "a joke"

January 28, 2007

MIM: The lawyer for Al Delama is Viktor Koppe (The Dutch Stewart Cohen) is also defending convicted terrorist Samir Azzouz a member of the Hofstadgroep whose leader killed Theo Van Gogh. He was convicted of planning attacks on security installations, a nuclear reactor and the airport. After Azzouz was sentenced he went on hunger strike claiming he wanted to be transferred to an all male wing of the prison.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - The Netherlands' government has extradited a naturalized Dutch citizen charged with involvement in terror attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, the Justice Ministry said.

In December, Dutch courts ruled Iraqi-born Wesam al Delaema, 32, could be extradited for his alleged role in attacks on U.S. forces in 2003.

Al Delaema was on a plane headed for an undisclosed location in the U.S., Dutch Justice Ministry spokesman Ivo Hommes said Saturday.

"Even if I knew where he is headed, I couldn't say," Hommes said. "It's a matter for the U.S. Justice Department now."

Al Delaema will become the first suspect tried in a U.S. court for alleged terrorism in Iraq's bloody insurgency.

If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Al Delaema claims he is innocent and his lawyers have argued that the U.S. does not have the right to try him. Evidence against him includes a videotape he filmed of a group called "Warriors of Fallujah" preparing a roadside bomb.

The tape was seized by police who raided al Delaema's house in the Dutch city of Amersfoort in May 2005 following a tip from U.S. authorities.

Al Delaema's attorney, Victor Koppe, had argued he feared al Delaema could be tortured by U.S. authorities and said the U.S. legal system couldn't be trusted.

U.S. authorities have given assurances that al Delaema will be tried in a federal court, not by a military commission such as those set up for terror suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They also said they would not oppose al Delaema serving his sentence in a Dutch prison if he is convicted.

"There is no reason to believe that the U.S. authorities will not abide by the commitments they have given or ... deprive the suspect of his fundamental rights," a judge at the Appeals Court in The Hague wrote in a Dec. 19 ruling, rejecting al Delaema's final appeal.

Al Delaema's indictment, filed at the U.S. District Court in Washington in July, charges him with "possession of a destructive device (explosives) during a crime of violence; and conspiracy to possess a destructive device during a crime of violence."

Al Delaema, a naturalized Dutch citizen, traveled to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion.

In extradition hearings, he argued that he was forced to make the video after being kidnapped and beaten. He said he feared being beheaded if he resisted.

In a 2003 interview broadcast on Dutch television, al Delaema accused the U.S. and its allies of waging war in Iraq to control its oil reserves.

"The Americans and British are coming to our country to steal oil and everyone knows it," he said.

"I don't care if I myself die or not. I want to offer myself up for my land, for my people. I'm not more or less important than the women and children who you see on television dying because of America."